In-house counsel has been the preferred career choice for lawyers for the following 5 reasons:
1. Decent starting salaries
2. Stable, consistent growth
3. Good work-life balance
4. Meaningful work, connection with the business
5. Opportunity to get ESOPs if the company is successful
Typically, in-house counsels were pooled from 2 sources:
1. A handful of lawyers who got jobs at reputed law firms would move to in-house counsel roles after a few years of grinding to have a more stable work-life balance
2. There was another set of lawyers who did CS and went into in-house counsel roles from early stages of their career.
Other lawyers had no clue how to make it, and they always wanted to be a part of this blissful world.
Sadly, they misunderstood and thought that the doors to this world are actually shut and open to only these two categories of people.
In reality, demand for in-house counsels is skyrocketing higher than ever, given India’s economic growth, startup revolution and rapid formalisation, and there is a very short supply of skilled talent, amidst thousands who are struggling to get these jobs.
Not knowing the roadmap is the real problem.
In-house counsel opportunities are not restricted to corporate lawyers from good law firms.
You don’t have to be a CS, or from an NLU, or have godfathers in the legal profession.
This is one branch of the legal profession which truly is democratic and affords equal opportunity to anyone.
Here are 3 trends that are revolutionising the landscape for in-house counsels as we speak:
1. AI – Can you take advantage of the AI revolution to build superior templates, negotiation playbooks, compliance calendars, checklists, automate reports, SOPs, even chatbots for business teams?
2. Legal tech innovations are changing the everyday work of in-house counsels. Do you know how to utilise legal tech innovations to transform your day-to-day work? What are the key areas of work where you must implement legal tech? How can you utilise legal tech to manage contracts, litigation, track compliance in a 3x superior way?
3. ODR is quietly revolutionising dispute resolution in India, especially in case of disputes where the monetary amount is relatively lesser. Banks and regulators (including SEBI and RBI) are enabling and encouraging ODR frameworks.
ODR tools have the potential for deployment in many other industries as well. Do you know how you can utilise ODR platforms to speed up contract enforcement and money-recovery for your client?
Embrace these trends, and you have explosive rocket-fuel to propel your career.
Do you want to become an in-house counsel?
I’ll share some key tips and tricks and strategies over the next few days.